The enduring appeal of a bespectacled wizard

quick to insist that despite its current popularity, the series would soon fade from memory. The following autumn, in 2000, the next cohort of students also picked Sorcerer’s Stone for the final text, and like their predecessors, they confidently dismissed it.

Fast-forward to the spring of 2007. When it came time for the students to choose the final book, they went with Sorcerer’s Stone. I braced myself for their criticisms.

This time, however, the reviews were glowing. This new group, born between 1986 and 1989, had first read Rowling as preteens and early adolescents, not college students, which meant they had practically grown into young adults alongside Harry, Ron and Hermione. The same thing happened in 2010. For both these groups, “We grew up with Harry Potter” was a motto, not a label. Would he fade from memory? Not on your life.

I have taught the course twice since 2010, and both times the students have chosen a non-Harry Potter novel to end the semester. Is it Potter fatigue? Not likely, judging from the reception the series continues to receive in the other course in which I teach Rowling’s work, Children’s Literature. Here, it is my choice to put a Harry Potter novel on the syllabus. I assign Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban — my favorite book of the seven — which marks the shift from children’s literature to young adult fiction through its complex treatment of fidelity, betrayal, rage and mercy. It is also the favorite of many of my students.

But how long will the popularity hold? Each time I teach Children’s Literature, I start with a poll: Which books on the syllabus do you remember reading as a child? In 2010, 86 percent had read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. In 2012, that figure rose to 94 percent. But in the years since, the percentage has dropped — 87 percent in 2014, and 81 percent in 2016.

This is all unscientific, I know. But I am curious: Will it fall under 80 percent next spring, when I teach Children’s Literature again? Will my students from 1999 and 2000 be proved right, with Harry Potter fading from relevance, never to become an enduring classic? Or is there an equilibrium point ahead, where the percentage holds steady without declining further? Perhaps Potter’s 40th anniversary will provide the answers. Until then, I will happily keep inviting him into my classroom.

QWilliam A. Gleason is professor of English at Princeton University. © Project Syndicate